d launched 'em. I
offered to go ashore, if anybody would go with me. John Mac, he first
agreed to it, but all the others refused; and then he said he would go if
the others would. And then we steered for Portland Harbor."

"Well, and the third voyage?"

"That we made in the Grampus. Captain Josh Safford and Captain Bill
Drinkwater went with us. We found two Spaniards upon the island. Their
boats had gone to Porto Rico after provisions, they said. So Captain
Safford, he gave them two muskets, with powder and ball, and they went off
hunting goats. After this, I didn't consider myself justified in going
ashore; and Captain Drinkwater complained a good deal of the liberty
Safford took in supplying strangers with firearms. They might pop a fellow
off at any time, you know, and nobody thereabouts would a ben the wiser."

"And here endeth the third voyage, hey?"

"Jess so."

"Do you happen to know anything about the other two?"

"Yes--for though I didn't go in the vessel, I knew pretty much all that
happened. You see, Colonel Jones he went to work with the fortin-teller
again; and he jest puts her to sleep, and tries her out and out, on
Jewell's Island, where she found a skeleton fixed between two trees, and
the walls of a hut, all grown over with large trees, and all the things
he'd buried there; and then too, while we was at sea, she told him what we
were doing, day by day, and they logged it all down: and when we got back
and compared notes, we found it all true. Ah! he was a sharp one, I tell
you! At last, he got her upon the track of Taylor. She found him in the
East Indies, under another name, and shipped aboard one of our national
ships. And so, what does he do but go to work and petition the Navy
Department for Taylor's discharge, upon the ground that a grand estate had
been left him--or, that he had large expectations, I forget which. He was
very shy at first, and wouldn't acknowledge that he had ever gone by the
name of Thomas Taylor. I dare say he had his reasons. But, after hunting
him through hospitals, and navy yards, and sailor boarding-houses, and from
ship to ship, the colonel he cornered him, and got him to say he would go
with them. He told exactly the same story that Greenleaf did: I was taken
sick, and couldn't go, and---stop--I'm before my story, I believe--they
made their voyage without him. They landed, dug trenches, and blistered
their hands, and spent over two days in the search, while the schoon